AN AMIABLE HUSBAND.

Evening Star, Issue 3249, 19 July 1873, Page 3

AN AMIABLE HUSBAND.

The case of Moses against White, for assault with intent, was heard before Mr Warden Wood, on Othinst. The facts of the case are simply these : —Mr Matthew Moses is the foreman in the construction of a bridge across the Mataura, at the Pyramids, and has been for some weeks boarding in the hotel kept by White, and necessarily became aware of the treatment to which the defendant subjected his wife, and upon a late occasion threatened White should he again assault his wife in the brutal manner he had done, he should interfere. I may here remark that White’s treatment of Mrs White is known within an easy distance of fifty miles. It would appear from the evidence that Moses and the men employed on the bridge were awaiting dinner in the dining-room on Saturday, 4th inst., when screams were heard from the kitchen, and Moses, guessing what was on, rushed to the rescue of the unfortunate woman ; but on opening the kitchen door he was met by White, with a half-axe, who attempted to strike him on the head, but Moses avoided that intended —and perhaps fatal—result by throwing forward his left arm, thereby receiving the blow about an inch below the elbow. The axe passed through a thick tweed coat and shirt, inflicting a severe though not dangerous wound of about three inches in length, and, no surgeon or other person being present capable of rendering the necessary assistance, White himself proffered and proceeded to sew up the wound ; but in the middle of .the operation, it would seem, he knocked off to administer to Mrs White an additional castigation with a candlestick, which agreeable operation was interrupted by some, of the employes on the bridge. The facts as stated were fully borne out by the witnesses, and additional little items of domestic life as enjoyed at the Pyramids, sufficient at least to make a man forswear matrimony, were adduced Mr Wood fined White in the very small amount of 40s and costs, of course, and bound him over in Ll2O to keep the peace, which, after a couple of days’ canvassing, was procured from Invercargill, the residents there not having that same confiding faith in the future good conduct of White as Mr Wood.